Meta: iPhone Wallpaper: Golden Age Illustration

These images are just the tip of the iceberg... see The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for more jaw dropping examples of classic illustration.


If you just got an iPhone and you're looking for great images to use as wallpaper, download one of these linked archive files. They include 30 classic illustrations by Tenggren, Dulac, Parrish, Wyeth and Artzybasheff, ready to load onto your iPhone...



iPhone Wallpaper: Stuffit FIle (.sit)
(Stuffit Archive / .sit / Get Stuffit Expander / 1.5 mb)

iPhone Wallpaper: Zip FIle (.zip)
(Zip Archive / .zip / 1.5 mb)

Please tell everyone you know with an iPhone about this post. Help spread the word about ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive! Let me know in the comments if you'd like me to put together more wallpaper sets from the archive.

If you'd like to see more great images like this and read about the artists who created these amazing paintings, browse through our Classic Illustration Index.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Media: Artzybasheff's Diablerie

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.


Plowman, plowman, what of thy hands?

Recently, Danish political cartoons have created a firestorm of controversy all over the world. It shouldn't be surprising that cartoons can evoke this sort of uproar; after all, back in the late 1800s Thomas Nast's caricatures brought down Boss Tweed and in the 1970s, Herb Block was a major thorn in Nixon's side.

World War II was a prime era for political cartoonists. Passions ran high, and the whole world was at stake. We've already looked at Arthur Szyk's "The New Order"... Today we look at more of Boris Artzybasheff's amazing illustrations from As I See.

In his introduction to the chapter entitled "Diablerie", Artzybasheff writes:

"Let's sing hosannas to men this day, for theirs is the triumph of wit! In their long search for better tools and weapons, men at last have found the way of locking a pinch of cosmic force in a sheath of silver-white metal... as well as the means for making it go boom. Any time they wish, or think they must, men can touch off an orgasmic flash, making the oceans boil and seethe with fire, making the soil rise up in crimson dust... Perhaps after the cloud drifts thrice around it, the earth will emerge once more free of living things... In the hush of night this comely planet will go on waltzing in its ordained orbit until God awakens from His sleep and resolves it back to the primordial elements.

I try to shake this thought off; it may be that a healthy planet should have no more life upon it than a well-kept dog has fleas; but what posesses the flea to concoct its own flea powder?"




The Headless Horseman


In Pursuit of Zeros


Jet Propulsion: V-One


Radio Propaganda










The Pied Piper of Berchtesgaden




The Balance of Power


The Triumph of Wit


The Witches' Sabbath
Many people who read this blog aren't aware that the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive isn't just a website... it is much more than that. We are archiving these images at high resolution for use in our Animation Center in Burbank. As an example, here is an image of Hitler's eye from the image above at the full resolution of our archival scan...



For more amazing images from "As I See", see Artzybasheff's Neurotica and Machinalia

Also see... Mid 30s Colliers Illustrations, Mid 30s Advertisements, Wartime Colliers, Late 40s Colliers, Lawson Wood: The Monkey Artist, Casey Strikes Out In Coronet, Bugs Bunny in Coronet Magazine December 1945, Milton Caniff in Coronet Magazine, Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, John Held Jr, Ward Kimball in Escapade, Complete Guide To Cartooning On Magazine Cartoons Part One and Part Two, and Rube Goldberg's Side Show.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

6.10.08
.

Stumble It!

Media: Artzybasheff's Machinalia

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.


In his introduction to the section titled "Machinalia" in his book As I See, Boris Artzybasheff says, "I am thrilled by machinery's force, precision and willingness to work at any task, no matter how arduous or monotonous it may be. I would rather watch a thousand ton dredge dig a canal than see it done by a thousand spent slaves lashed into submission. I like machines."


Making of Steel: Charging the Open Hearth


Tapping a Heat of Steel


Filling Ingot Molds


The Soaking Pit


The Blooming Pit


The Rod Mill


Hydraulic Press


Stranding of Wire Rope


Weaving of Fence Fabric


Wire Drawing Machines


Spring Forming Presses


Wire Cloth Looms


Navy's Mark III Calculator


Executive of the Future

Recently, I was asked by a visitor to the Archive what relevance half century old cartoons and magazine illustrations have to the current animation scene. Well, this question is best answered with an example... Look at these amazing designs by Boris Artzybasheff originally published in the 1950s, and look at this clip from Fleischer's Lost & Foundry.. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to be able to picture what a sequence in a current CGI film would look like if it had designs like Artzybasheff's and animation like the Fleischers'.

Popeye in "Lost & Foundry" (Fleischer/1937)
(Quicktime 7 / 10 megs)

PLEASE NOTE The text and media files on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog are not to be duplicated, redistributed or hosted on other websites without the prior written permission of the Board of Directors of ASIFA-Hollywood.

If you enjoyed this post, see... Mid 30s Colliers Illustrations, Mid 30s Advertisements, Wartime Colliers, Late 40s Colliers, Lawson Wood: The Monkey Artist, Casey Strikes Out In Coronet, Bugs Bunny in Coronet Magazine December 1945, Milton Caniff in Coronet Magazine, Dispatch From Disney's Part One and Part Two, John Held Jr, Ward Kimball in Escapade, Complete Guide To Cartooning On Magazine Cartoons Part One and Part Two, and Rube Goldberg's Side Show.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

5.28.08
.

Stumble It!

Media: Artzybasheff's Neurotica

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 6 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about golden age illustration.


Naught so sweet as Melancholy
One of the key concepts that an animator deals with every day is anthropomorphism... In most cases, this is applied to animals or teapots, but this aspect of caricature has barely been explored in mainstream animated films. Boris Artzybasheff was a master of anthropomorphism. He was able to give life and personality not only to animals and objects, but to ideas.

Artzybasheff had a long career as an illustrator, beginning in the late 1920s with art deco style illustrations for books like Creatures, extending all the way through the 1950s. His most notable achievements are his cover illustrations for Time magazine, depicting a wide range of contemporary people in the news; and also his arresting images for magazine ads promoting Shell Oil, Xerox and Parker Pens.

ASIFA-Hollywood is lucky to have a friend like Mike Fontanelli. His library of books on cartooning is one of the best in the country. Mike has agreed to share his collection with ASIFA-Hollywood's Archive. The first book he selected to loan us to be digitized is one of the rarest books in his collection... Artzybasheff's "As I See". The first section of this book is titled "Neurotica" and it is a visual depiction of extreme states of mind.






Anxiety


Frustration


Timidity


Repressed Hostility


Indecision


Infantalism


Paranoia


Schizophrenia


Inferiority


So pure, and so relaxing


Hypochondria


Manic-Depressive

For more amazing images from "As I See", see Artzybasheff's Machinalia and Diablerie

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

04.25.08
.

Stumble It!